“That’s the one I played Wonderwall on!”: How a guitar-smashing bust-up between Liam and Noel Gallagher led to a studio engineer owning an iconic Oasis guitar
Oasis engineer Nick Brine has revealed how he acquired the legendary Takamine Acoustic that Noel Gallagher wrote Wonderwall on. The fateful moment was back in the ’90s when Oasis were working on Be Here Now, and Brine was working closely with the band as a mix engineer at Abbey Road’s Studio Two.
According to the BBC, the incident that led to Brine acquiring the instrument was a fight that broke out between the two Gallagher brothers, allegedly over a comment that Noel had made about Liam in the news. Liam Gallagher was reportedly hungover from the night before: “I’m in Abbey Road’s Studio Two setting up equipment and hungover myself, then looking up I saw a guitar come flying over from the control room” Brine recalls.
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Nick had worked with Oasis on (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, and knew to leave Liam alone if such “flashpoints” occurred. However, chaos ensued well before Noel Gallagher had entered the building, and Liam was causing some real damage in the studio: “Noel’s Fender Jag [was] smashed to bits. I run to the control room and Liam also made a big dent in Abbey Road’s mixing desk.”
Oasis’s Abbey Road mix engineer says he also witnessed firsthand the moment when his own acoustic guitar went “flying over the top and [lay] in a thousand pieces on the floor…” It was shortly after that Noel Gallagher came in and asked “what the hell is going on?”
The two brothers argued over whose acoustic guitar was smashed, before Nick sheepishly admitted to Liam it was his. “Then there was a big argument about who was going to buy me a new one. I told them it’s not valuable but it has quite sentimental value as my mum gave it to me”, Nick says. Liam offered to take Nick to Denmark Street for a replacement, but Noel was not having any of it. “What do you know about guitars?” he quipped.
After some heated discussion, and even an apologetic phone call to Nick’s own mother, Noel handed him the Takamine Acoustic that he had not only played Wonderwall on, but had also played at the Knebworth and MTV Unplugged concerts. “I was gobsmacked, I said ‘it’s OK, it’s fine’ but Noel insisted I take it…”
Since then, Nick has had to insure the guitar, and according to the BBC, some auction houses estimate that it would command around £100,000 if he were to ever sell it.
Oasis will begin their highly anticipated 2025 run of shows in early July. For more info, head to their official website.
The post “That’s the one I played Wonderwall on!”: How a guitar-smashing bust-up between Liam and Noel Gallagher led to a studio engineer owning an iconic Oasis guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
